Yale study finds bias among Facebook users against elderly people

NEW HAVEN -- Young Facebook folks are ganging up on older people, according to a new Yale University study.

Yale researchers found that a startling percentage of public Facebook groups in a targeted search engine sample contained negative stereotypes of people over the age of 60. The descriptions included everything from severe snark to an assertion that older people should be put before a firing squad.

"I think we were all surprised," said Becca Levy, an associate professor and director of the social and behavioral sciences division of the Yale School of Public Health. "Quite a few of the descriptions had to do with banning older people from driving or shopping. There were a few that talked about shooting older people."

The study, which appeared on the online version of the journal The Gerontologist, was conducted by Yale, the University of California in Berkeley, Hunter College and New Haven's Hopkins School.

Levy said all but one of them included a negative stereotype. The exception was a group devoted to the "Lord of the Rings" character Gandalf.

"Old people are a pain in the (expletive deleted) as far as I'm concerned and they are a burden on society," one group's description said. "I hate everything about them, from their hair nets in the rain to their white Velcro sneakers. They are cheap, they smell like (expletive deleted) ... they are senile, they complain about everything, they couldn't hear a dumptruck ..."

Another group's description said, "Old people do not contribute to modern society at all. Their single and only meaning is to nag and to (expletive deleted) moan. Therefore, any OAP (Old Age Pensioner) that pass (sic) the age of 69 should immediately face a fire (sic) squad."

Although the Yale team only looked at English language groups, Levy said the study included groups from around the world. She said 74 percent of the groups excoriated older people, 37 percent suggested they should be banned from public activities and 27 percent infantilized them.

The majority of the groups' creators were between the ages of 20 and 29, Levy said.

"Facebook has the potential to break down barriers between generations; in practice, it may have erected new ones," the study argued.

But Facebook sees the matter quite differently.

Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for the social networking site, released this statement about the Yale study: "We welcome meaningful research on how people connect and share on Facebook but believe this study paints an incomplete picture of how more than a billion people use the platform."

With regard to hateful speech or content, Noyes said Facebook's policy is that "direct statements of hate against particular communities violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and are removed when reported to us. However, groups that express an opinion on a state, institution or set of beliefs  even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some  do not by themselves violate our policies."

There are hundreds of millions of Facebook groups. The 84 groups analyzed in Yale's study include roughly 25,000 members, which represents only a fraction of Facebook's global user base.

Groups that advocate for the elderly also can be found on Facebook, including AARP and the National Council on Aging.